Keir sat with Chloë in his lap, his head against her chest as she wrapped her arms fiercely around him. He should have been hysterical with sorrow, but instead, he was strangely calm. It was as if he wasn’t quite sure what to feel. His left cheek was against the swell of Chloë’s chest as he spoke.
“There is no knowing the how or why of it,” he murmured. “It took us over a week to return to Pendragon once we were informed of Lord Stain’s siege, and when we arrived, Madeleine and Frances had not been dead that long. I do not understand how we could not have heard Merritt’s cries. Surely he was still alive when we arrived. Why did we not hear him?”
“Because it is possible he was already dead,” Summer spoke softly from her position a few feet away from the bed where Keir and Chloë sat. “The compartment he is in is very tight and sturdy. He was packed very tightly into it. It’s possible he was too weak to cry out for help once you arrived and simply passed away from suffocation or hunger. It is difficult to know. I am sure he simply went to sleep and never woke up.”
She meant to comfort Keir with those last words. Chloë gazed up at her friend with big, sad eyes reflecting her appreciation, as Keir kept his gaze on the open wardrobe.
“Perhaps,” he said softly. “But I do not understand why… a body that is rotting will give a strong scent. I never smelled anything.”
“He is sealed up very tightly,” Michael said. “Moreover, Madeleine must have piled all of her possessions on top of the compartment to further hide the boy, and then sealed the doors up. After we buried Madeleine and Frances, you never used this room or the children’s’ room until Chloë and Cassandra came. These rooms have been virtually sealed up for three years, Keir.”
“But I searched for Merritt up here,” Keir insisted, some passion returning to his tone. “I searched what I thought was every inch of this room. I even looked in the wardrobe.”
“But you never looked in the hidden compartment.”
Keir sighed heavily, at a loss. “I had forgotten about it,” he admitted. “My thoughts were so frantic and scattered during that time… it simply never occurred to me, and by the way the compartment is built into the wardrobe, it is well hidden unless you know what you are looking for. It simply… never occurred to me….”
“It is possible that the scent of decomposition had not yet grown strong enough to be detected when you were searching for him in these rooms,” Summer said quietly, trying to ease the man’s guilty conscience. “Once you shut the room off and never returned, it would not have been strong enough to penetrate the stone and fill the entire keep. Eventually, it simply faded away.”
Keir sighed again, with great remorse and sorrow, before setting his wife on her feet and rising from the bed. He went over to the wardrobe, rather hesitantly, where Michael was still standing, and gazed down upon the nearly skeletal remains of his son. He felt such overwhelming sadness that he couldn’t begin to describe it. After a moment, he reached down and collected the little body very carefully.
“Merritt,” he whispered, looking at the skull contained within the clothes. There was nothing to hold the bones together but a few scrap of mummified skin and the clothing around it, so he essentially ended up holding a pile of bones against his chest. “I am so sorry, lad. I am so sorry I failed you.”
Chloë came to stand beside him, her arms going around his waist and her head against his back. She hugged him tightly.
“You did not fail him,” she whispered through her tears. “You were a wonderful father. What happened was not your fault and you must not blame yourself.”
Michael stepped away from the grieving couple, going to his wife and wrapping his arms around her. This was such a private and painful moment, yet Michael and Summer remained to support Keir and Chloë. Three years of hell and longing had come to a sorrowful close. As Keir and Chloë wept quietly over Merritt’s remains, a small figure entered the room.
Michael caught sight of little Aust as the child stood just inside the door. He hadn’t realized that the lad followed them into the keep when they bolted as a result of Chloë’s screams, but the boy had evidently trailed the knights as far as the upper floor. Still, he would not go into the room where they were convening over something very serious. He remained in the hall, frightened and uncertain.
But he could hear what was going on, the words spoken. Now Aust was standing in the chamber, gazing up at Keir and Chloë as they mourned over the bundle of rags.
“I… I heard you yell,” Aust spoke nervously, then cleared his throat and coughed. “I heard you say you found your boy. Did… did you find Merritt?”
Chloë and Keir looked at him, their eyes red and watery. “How do you know of Merritt?” Keir asked.
Aust, the child who was supremely terrified of people, swallowed for courage. “Those men…,” he stumbled over his words. “Those bad men… I heard them speak of Merritt and how he was your son. They told me I was Merritt but I told them I was not. Did you find him, then?”
Keir could only nod, looking back to the bundle in his arms, and Chloë spoke in his stead. “We did,” she said softly.
Aust was curious, fearful and pensive as he realized that something must be wrong indeed if they were weeping. He couldn’t really see what Sir Keir was holding but he suspected it was something very bad. His little mind began to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
“Is… is he dead?” he asked softly.
Chloë nodded, smiling gently at the boy even though she was wiping her eyes. “You should not worry. He is at peace now that we have found him.”
Aust thought on that. His brow furrowed as he watched the adults deal with their grief. “I know…,” he swallowed hard and tried again. “I know I will never go home. You have all been nice to me but I know I will not go home. I do not know where I live, only that it was a place with a church and I had a pet goat. If you cannot take me home, then I will stay here and be Merritt so you can stop crying.”
Surprised by the rather grown-up and very sweet offer, Keir and Chloë looked at Aust with some shock before looking at each other. Keir, in spite of his grief, was deeply touched by the child’s words. He gazed at Chloë a moment, seeing her faint smile, perhaps one of some joy and encouragement, before putting Merritt’s remains carefully back in the compartment that had been his crypt. Gathering his composure, he went to Aust and took a knee beside the lad.
Pale blue eyes met with curious, intelligent brown. After a moment, he put a big hand on Aust’s shoulder.
“Your offer is very generous,” he said softly. “I am pleased and touched by it. But it is not necessary.”
Aust’s brow furrowed and he took a surprising stand. “You saved me from those men who were hurting me,” he sounded older than his years. “I know what you did. You got hurt but you still saved me from those men and then they took you instead. Because you saved me, I belong to you.”
Keir’s expression suggested that he wasn’t quite sure how to respond. He looked back over his shoulder at his wife, at Michael and Summer, only to see that they all seemed touched by Aust’s attitude. It was a very pure view of a complicated situation. Keir returned his focus to the boy.
“I saved you because it was the right thing to do,” he finally said. “It does not mean that you belong to me. It simply means that I helped you when you needed help.”
He started to stand up but Aust grabbed him by the sleeves. Before Keir realized it, the little boy was wrapping his arms around his neck and weeping.
“Please,” the child wept softly. “God sent me to you because your boy was dead. He wants me to be Merritt. Please do not make me go away.”
Keir could feel tears sting his eyes as he hugged the child. He didn’t know what else to do. On his knees with a five year old in his arms, he felt Chloë kneel next to him. Her arms went around them both as she kissed her husband on the cheek.
“Perhaps he is right,” she whispered, stroking Aust’s blond head. “Perhaps God knew we would fi
nd Merritt and has sent you another boy to comfort you. Aust will not take Merritt’s place in your heart but perhaps stand beside him as a comfort and a tribute. I, for one, would be proud to be called his mother. He is a brave and compassionate child.”
Keir could feel his tears return as he held the child, thinking on his selfless words. “My inclination is to return him to his parents,” he whispered. “He belongs to someone else. They are missing him as I missed Merritt.”
Chloë hugged him. “But he does not know where his parents live,” she murmured. “We could spend years and still never find them. In the meantime, he will be living with us unless you plan to turn him over to an orphanage.”
“Of course not,” Keir breathed. “But I would feel guilty keeping him when his parents are alive, looking for him.”
“Then perhaps until such time as we find them, Aust can belong to us.”
It seemed like a fair enough solution and, if he were to admit it, it comforted him to have a five year old boy tagging around after him again. Perhaps Aust and Chloë were right. Perhaps he could belong to them, if only until his real parents were found. Now, Keir had a wife and child again and it was a settling, binding peace that embraced him. Finally, he felt a true peace again, stronger than he had ever known.
Merritt St. Héver was buried in the same crypt as his mother and sister in the small chapel at Pendragon, together again with his family in death as he had been in life. Chloë told Keir of Frances’ last visit and how the child’s phantom was instrumental in locating Merritt’s remains, for without her guidance the mystery of Merritt St. Héver’s disappearance would have never been solved.
It was a sweet and poignant end for the little girl who had been constantly trying to get rid of the little brother that had followed her around in life, and when the crypt was sealed on his children and dead wife, Keir felt a distinct sense of closure. Now, he could fully move on with his life with a woman he loved more by the hour.
Chloë had also mentioned to Keir what Frances had said the moment she faded off into the wardrobe, words that had no meaning until they’d found the remains. Then, they held a great deal of meaning and it was that epithet that Keir had emblazoned on the top of the crypt. It was a final and lasting tribute to his dead wife and children, an appropriate statement that would bind them for all eternity.
With thee… now I sleep.
* THE END *
By Kathryn Le Veque
THE WARRIOR POET
A Medieval Romance
By Kathryn Le Veque
FOREWORD
By Bud Dietrich, Ph.D.
From the earliest authenticated date of his writings until his death in 1306 A.D., Sir Christian St. John accumulated over fourteen volumes of text chronicling his life, teachings and speculations that, even now, continue to set precedence for the world of modern English Literature. The British Museum of Arts and Sciences has an entire exhibit dedicated to a collection of St. John works that continues to be scrutinized and revered by layman and scholars alike.
It has been rumored for centuries within the inner sanctums of the civilized world’s most powerful laureates that William Shakespeare received his literary motivation based on the scripts of Christian St. John. Later writers such as Shelley or Bronte or even Poe were also known to have idolized his work. It was even speculated that Shakespeare himself plagiarized several St. John passages within the guise of his own marvelous pieces.
Although Sir Christian’s modern ideals and exemplary text are that by which he has achieved his fame, few details of his notable life have ever been discovered. Even if the world views his writings as his most monumental achievement, oddly enough, Sir Christian did not. He actually stopped writing for some time after the death of his father, as it seemed to be a particularly difficult period in his life, but he resumed at the birth of his first child shortly thereafter.
Furthermore, it is clear upon reviewing his journals that he considered his wife to be his most important accomplishment, a woman whom he referred to by name only once. All other references to his wife were indicated simply by “she” or “her”. Unfortunately, her name has been lost to the ravages of time but St. John scholars seem to think it was either Caitleen or Catherine. Lady St. John bore Sir Christian eleven children, several of whom went on to be important men in their own right including the eldest, Alexander St. John, who was an important warrior for Edward the Second and Edward the Third. Lady St. John’s death preceded Sir Christian’s in 1300 A.D., and it was at that moment he ceased writing altogether. When his muse died, so did he in a sense, but when he finally passed away in 1306 A.D., he was buried with his wife in the same crypt as he had requested. Lord and Lady St. John’s love story is truly one for the ages.
If only we knew more about her, perhaps that knowledge would reveal more insights into the relationship she once shared with the man once known as the Demon of Eden. Perhaps, then, we would know the true inspiration behind Sir Christian’s well-regarded chronicles.
Perhaps, then, we would understand what it is to truly know a devotion beyond the boundaries of space and time. A devotion Sir Christian considered a far greater fulfillment than any literary success he managed to attain, no matter how distinguished the modern world considers them to be.
Perhaps, then, there is more to the life and intellectual talents of Sir Christian St. John than the world of contemporary scholars are able to decipher. If we were only able to discover the name and history of the woman he refers to as his greatest passion, then, perhaps, we would be able to better understand the forces behind the knight once known as The Demon of Eden….
‘Beauty discerns no boundaries
Hatred unbeknownst in the splendid
State of Grace.
The sting of the scorpion
would be preferable
to the agony of love beyond the loathing.’
~ Chronicles of Christian St. John
Vl. IV, p. CIV
PROLOGUE
Year of our Lord 1266 A.D.
Month of August
Skiddaw Forest, Cumbria, England
“God’s Bones, Quinton, what is so important that you would pull me from a training session and drag me all over the blessed countryside?”
Quinton St. John didn’t look to his brother, nor did he respond but to smile. His brother, astride a magnificent white destrier, scowled and shook his head with frustration. As the two horses plunged down a particularly steep slope, dragging their hind legs and digging deep ruts in the damp earth in order to keep from pitching their riders forward, the annoyed brother again shook his head.
“If my horse ruptures a tendon because of your foolish folly, I shall have your head,” he growled, grunting as his huge charger leapt over the small stream at the base of the embankment. Tightening up on the reins and throwing his weight forward as the animal charged up the grassy incline on the opposite side in an attempt to keep pace with the lead rider, he again yelled to his brother. “Quinton, do you hear me? Tell me where we are going or I shall turn about this instant!”
“Don’t turn about!” Quinton knew his brother’s threat to be serious. “I promise you, it will be worth the effort!”
Christian St. John rolled his eyes with irritation as his brother led him across a brief clearing and through a cluster of rich green oaks. A heavy branch of prickly oak leaves snapped back as his brother passed by, nearly whipping him across the face had he not been alert enough to dodge it. Abruptly, he reined his destrier to a halt. Several yards in front of him, Quinton realized his brother had stopped and brought his own steed to an unsteady halt.
Christian’s piercing ice-blue eyes were hard. “Not another step until I find out why you have set a hell-pace across the boundaries of our lands.”
Quinton leaned forward on the pommel of his saddle, his blue eyes twinkling. “Do you trust me?”
“Without question. But you are taking us into disputed territory and I shall not proceed unless I know your reason
ing.”
Quinton pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I would tell you, but then it would not be a surprise. Trust me, Demon. I shall not bring you to harm or idiocy.”
Christian cocked an eyebrow. “Our very presence on the border of the disputed lands is a distinct show of idiocy. We are bearing towards de Gare lands.”
Quinton glanced over his shoulder as if to note his brother’s observations. “It’s not much further,” he returned his focus to Christian’s irritated expression. “Please? Just a little further and I promise you will not be disappointed.”
Christian let out a hissing sigh. “Disappointed by what? Damnation, Quinton, brother or no I shall take my sword to you and….”
Quinton cut him off, spurring his horse onward. “If we don’t hurry, we shall miss it. Come along!”
Christian’s first reaction was to turn his steed for the safety of their father’s fortress. But an ounce of curiosity had settled, making it far more difficult to complete the action that would set him for home. Watching his younger brother bolt through the trees, he realized with disgust that Quinton had succeeded in piquing his interest. He furthermore realized he was about to follow the man into the disputed territory – the lands separating the St. John’s from the de Gare’s.
The disputed lands were rich, filled with dense foliage and hidden streams. The heady smell of blooms cloaked the air as Christian caught up to his brother, both men slowing their pace as they passed through heavy brush. Clad in leather breeches, thick boots, and a sleeveless leather vest that did little to protect his massive arms against the stinging scratch of the bramble, Christian followed his brother’s lead down a narrow path that descended into a thick canopy of trees.
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